A real curveball was pitched to the playerbase when this hot topic came out—the auto-claim feature is officially off, and no, it was not a bug! Social media went into an uproar, while Epic Games confirmed the removal was intentional. So now, with reward claiming entirely manual, the community is NOT having this.
Auto claim was once a good quality-of-life feature—it would award Battle Pass rewards as soon as players leveled up. Now players have to painfully pick their rewards out themselves. Many see this as a needless step backward; some in the community called it “terrible game design,” like Twitter user @ArchdruidSeptos. “Why would Epic even want to take out a feature that was optional and didn’t detract from the gameplay?”
So, what works in the minds of Epic games? And there are more than a handful of theories. Some, like @cptbananas, sarcastically suggested that Epic is “losing big money giving away all those VBucks for free,” implying cost-cutting measures were considered. Conversely, @BestyBattalion said that some would actually appreciate manual claiming so they could prioritize certain rewards like VBucks over filler emotes. Yet most reactions were quite vehemently negative, with @Kid_Kinobi exclaiming, “That fing SUCKS😭.”
Well, the backlash actually went past that! @AshtonC015 wanted Epic to “bring back old UI and rarities,” while @Mrwhopper540121 saw this situation comparable to the “Battle Stars experience from Chapter 2 Season 7,” another poorly accepted change.
Then, for some funny internet sauce, @TheSPLAGames tweeted, sarcastically, “So Fortnite really woke up and said ‘you gotta EARN that Battle Pass now’ 💀💀,” hinting that they were stacking unnecessary steps to make rewards seem more “earned.” Meanwhile, @namafia_soldier said, “What’s next, you gotta pay for the feature?”—a dark joke that does seem pretty close to reality in certain quarters.
Amid all the protests, Epic never once gave a clear explanation. Players like @Keskuul pointed out that they gave a new “claim all” button after the removal, but the complaining hasn’t stopped. The general consensus? This was an unnecessary change that just makes the game all the more tedious.
Will Epic go back on their decision? Time can tell. But the players are currently fist-clicking through rewards, drawing more attention to their unvoiced sentiment.
Yep, that’s what has made snatching those Battle Pass rewards far more arduous! And for those of you in the few who actually liked this change… well, good for you, but you’re in the minority. The rest of us? We’ll be over here, mashing the claim button angrily.
